


Once We Were Brave and Good

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuvira meets a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once We Were Brave and Good

They bring her to a dungeon. The manacles around her wrist are foreign to her, and unbendable. She gazes at them in something like almost wonder even as the pain in her side intensifies as she can no longer clutch the hurt against her, burying it somewhere deep under her ribs, like the badger moles dug.

The cell is dank and dark. The door closes behind with a soft click. Pure metal, just like before. She wraps her fingers around the cold bars; they're heavy and cold against the delicate insides of her wrists.

Her flesh flutters. A nervous tick, and she impatiently jerks the ragged edge of her sleeve over it.

"I know you," a coarse voice croaks from the darkness beyond.

Kuvira stiffens, her loose hands clenching into fists. "Show yourself!"

An old haggard face peers from the bars. Her cheeks are withered, and her hair, shot with grey, hangs ragged around her face. "I know you," she says again.

"Yes--but I don't know you."

The old woman laughs, her hands hidden in the folds of her sleeves. "When I was younger than you, I conquered the earth kingdom. Sat on his throne. His soldiers waiting for my order, my whim."

Kuvira's skin chills. She knows her now, recognizes the echo of command in her voice, her fire-lit eyes. Once, she had been afraid of those same eyes even though she had only seen them in pictures.

Azula presses herself close to the bars. They cut across her face, stark blades of shadow. "Did they bring you to your knees?" she whispers.

Kuvira grips the bars, pain making her knees weak, the touch of Korra around her shoulders, lingering. She yearns for her family, for the family who had abandoned her, for the family she had betrayed, for Korra. The want cuts through her so quick and sharp she can''t breathe, and, distantly, she realizes her knees are still wet when she had fallen on the green grass of the spirit world. She presses her hot, damp forehead against the bars of her cell. "Yes," she whispers.

Azula turns from her, rubbing her paper skin with her thin hands. "Me too," she says. "Me too."


End file.
